Stigmata Press • About Us

Stigmata Press is the imprint under which small-press publisher Scott Aaron Stine has self-published much of his work since Winter of 1992. The first publication, Painful Excursions V1#8, was published sporadically until Summer of 1998 when the magazine was revisioned and started from ground zero as GICK!. This, "The Journal of Horror, Splatter & Exploitation Fare," published it's last issue in the Summer of 2001, but was again revised and begun anew in April of 2002 as Trashfiend, which narrowed its focus even further to "Horror & Exploitation Fare from the 1960s & 1970s." This publication went on hiatus in March of 2003, but is now being published as a series of books to be released as mass-market paperbacks starting in 2008.

In 2002, Stigmata Press created a naughty sister publication to Trashfiend called, coyly enough, Filthy Habits. This short-lived magazine mirrored it's bloodier brother, but focused exclusively on "Hardcore & Sexploitation Fare from the 1960s & 1970s." Although is is similarly on hiatus, publisher Stine hopes to resuscitate this ode to vintage erotica in the future, preferrably as a series of books identical in format to the new incarnation of Trashfiend.

In 2003, Stigmata Press published the first (and still only) index and price guide devoted to collectible and out-of-print videocassettes, The Trashfiend's Guide to Collecting Videotapes. As could be surmised by the title, most of the fare covered was horror and exploitation, but not exclusively so, as it also touched upon science fiction, fantasy, animation and other cult-related genres.

That same year, Stigmata Press ceased publication of all of its titles, giving publisher Stine the time he needed to devote to his book projects for other publishers. (In 2001, McFarland Publishing released his first mass market book, The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1960s & 1970s, and it's follow-up in 2003, The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1980s.) The most recent is the forthcoming Trashfiend: Disposable Horror Fare of the 1960s & 1970s, to be published by Critical Vision, the UK publisher that has made waves with its flagship book, Headpress Magazine.

During the 1990s, Stigmata Press also published a fair number of chapbooks, most showcasing the fiction of Reginald Bloom. Since that time, Mr. Bloom's work has appeared in such periodicals as Lovecraft's Weird Mysteries and in such e-zines as D.E. Davidson's Crimson and The Art of Horror, the latter of which was a story accepted for their Blood & Bones Halloween Collection anthology. Bloom can now claim to being an award-winning writer, as he also placed third in the Seventh Chiaroscuro Short Story Contest. (His contribution, "Your Infection," also appeared in the October 2001 issue of the e-zine Chiaroscuro--Treatments of Light & Shade in Words, and was given an honorable mention in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror.) In Summer of 2005, his story "Easter Always Falls on a Sunday" appeared in the mass-market horror anthology devoted to the living dead, Cold Flesh, edited by Paul Fry and published by Hellbound Books. Stigmata Press hopes to publish a collection of Bloom's work in late 2008, as well as chapbooks of some of his unpublished works along the way.

Copyright © 2008 by Stigmata Productions